June 2017

June 2o17

06/23/2017:

WHEN DID THE GOP BETRAY THEIR COUNTRY AND THEIR COUNTRYMEN? All my life (and I'm 60 years old), this country has had two main political parties. And for most of my life, you could say they've had a kind of yin-yang thing going. The Republicans were "more conservative," the Democrats were "more liberal," and they both had their share of good ideas. And in the hallowed halls of government, they often had to come to some kind of consensus--which is what kept the country functioning as well as it did.

Those days are gone.

The first inklings of something seriously amiss manifested themselves during the Clinton adminstration (for which Bill Clinton, with his nod-and-wink amorous dalliances, bore much of the blame). Things got much worse during the George W. Bush years, when the term "Bush Derangement Syndrome" was coined--now applicable, with appropriate name change, to a growing roster of politicians--and Americans started to grow fond of the chant NOT MY PRESIDENT (as if voting against a particular candidate meant that you were not stuck with them if they won--hey, folks, that's democracy).

But things really came to a head during the Obama adminstration. It was then that the right wing of the GOP seemed to come completely unglued. Hey, a long perusal of this blog will show that I was never a fan of Barack Obama; in fact, I used to call him the Obamessiah. I never liked his aristocratic aloofness, and I hated his association with crackpot characters like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But the way the GOP went on about him, you would have thought that Obama was the second coming of Satan, which is manifestly crap. We have had worse Presidents, even in my lifetime (Carter? Nixon?). It's very hard not to reach the conclusion that Obama Derangement Syndrome was based at least in part on Obama being black, because Jimmy Carter was a much worse President than Obama and he didn't cause the Republicans to take total leave of their senses. And, indeed, their very duty to their country and its citizens.

Because we are now seeing a whole new breed of Republican that has no apparent connection or commitment to what is best for America. Quite a few names leap immediately to mind: Scott Walker. Paul Ryan. Ted Cruz. Sam Brownback. Mitch McConnell. Anyone who voted for the GOP's healthcare plan in the House. Anyone who will vote for the GOP's healthcare plan in the Senate. All of the state-level GOP lackeys that enabled Walker and Brownback to wield absolute power over their citizens. Our Vice President, Mike Pence. And last but not least, our President--Donald Trump.

None of these people give a tinker's damn about what is best for this country and the vast majority of the people who live in it, or they would not have sold their souls to the Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Bradley Foundation, and other tools of the richest 1% of Americans. If you do not possess the skills or at least the interest to better the lives of your constituents, you don't belong in government and should accept, for the good of all concerned, that you need to find employment elsewhere. What is distinctly un-American is relying on a shadow network of mega-wealthy enablers to buy your way into power and keep you there, or worse yet (as seems to have been the case in Wisconsin) to rig election results to guarantee that the interests of the wealthiest always come first.

Let's just take a look, for example, at the GOP's feverish efforts to undo Obama's signature achievement, the American Health Care Act.

I think any reasonably rational person can agree that everyone needs health insurance, and that the rich don't need (yet another) tax break.

I can only reach the conclusion that the GOP has become not only irrational, but deeply un-American. This legislation has absolutely nothing to do with the good of the country (again, Republicans know as well as anyone that EVERYONE needs health insurance, and that the rich don't need [yet ANOTHER] tax break--especially considering that the rich have done absolutely nothing with their vastly increased earnings over the past decade except vastly enrich themselves, instead of creating the jobs that the GOP keeps telling us they're going to create with their great big piles of tax savings).

Obamacare may not be perfect, but at very least--right now, this very minute--23 million Americans have health insurance that will not have it if the GOP passes its ill-conceived, no, make that MALEVOLENT, "healthcare" plan. So why, WHY, would anyone with a conscience vote FOR this plan?

Is it worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of American citizens to stick it to the Black President?

I shouldn't even have to ask that question. Shame on the GOP for betraying their country and its people. History will show this to be the moment when the Republicans dropped off the cliff and plummeted to hell.